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A little less than three years ago, Dennis Riggs (one of six founders of
Prairie iNet) had an "aha" moment. Riding in a truck on his way to
lunch with neighboring farmers John Watters and Greg Olson, Riggs was urged to
try reaching the Internet on a "souped-up" laptop sitting in the back
seat. Amazingly, Riggs discovered that he could surf the Internet while riding
along a dirt road near Sydney, Illinois at 50 miles per hour.

Collectively, the farmers began to wonder if this could be a way to transmit
data (in particular, commodity prices, a critical tool for crop growers) to
rural areas much like a two-way radio can transmit voice-over-FM or
"wireless radio." They surmised that by using the unlicensed spectrum
to transmit radio frequencies, remote communities that are inaccessible to cable
lines and costly T1 connections could be brought online.

Although five of the six foundersGreg Olson, John Watters, Neil
Mulholland, Randy Ramundt, and Dennis Riggsare Illinois and Iowa farmers
of several generations, Watters and Olson had been long-time "garage"
tinkerers. Craig Heimstra, a veteran of two high-tech start-ups and a long-time
executive at Monsanto, later joined the group.

Even though located within miles of the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications in Champaign-Urbana (one of the major hubs for the Internet and
Internet2), access to these facilities for the average consumer are
prohibitively expensive. Thus, Watters and Olson continued to refine their RF
antennas built from scratch. Similar to an LMDS network, they prefer to call
their self-built technology network by the acronym WRAN: Wireless Rural Area
Network.

With $5 million in seed capital secured from Waitt Media and Liberty Media,
Prairie iNet launched on April 10, 2000 with direct line-of-sight transmitters
placed on top of grain elevatorsoften the tallest buildings in the region.
The Midwestern geography, with its flat plains naturally stretching for miles
and miles, allowed the signals to reach small towns that have been anxious to
connect to the information superhighway. Riggs, general manager of Prairie iNet,
says, "We'd like to think that we were the first to bring the Internet
to the hinterland."

Not for Farmers Only

Indeed, Pairie iNet, a pioneer in bringing wireless technology to underserved
communities, has spawned a number of followers, including Rural Internet Access
in Minnesota and Cascade Networks in the Pacific Northwest. Brian Magnuson,
president and CEO of Cascade Networks, notes that the need for broadband access
to the Internet is not just for farmers. More than three-quarters of his clients
have diverse businesses such as law offices and insurance brokerages. According
to Magnuson, "These days, the way business is done has changed so much.
Lawyers no longer receive yearly volumes of text, but must download updates on a
frequent basis. Likewise, insurance brokers submit requests for quotes not by
telephone or fax, but through the Internet. With the size of these data files,
these businesses can't function without broadband access."

Operating in the Pacific Northwest, notorious for its foggy days and rainy
nights, I wondered about the impact of weather conditions. Magnuson cited the
robust nature of wireless equipment acquired from Motorola as the reason for
such smooth sailing. After testing many other products, Magnuson notes the
ability to cover as much area as possible, regardless of the weather
conditions,as one of the most important attributes of the Canopy product
line. While line-of-sight technology still has it drawbacks, Magnuson predicts,
"Within two years, there will be a good flow of non-line-of-sight products
on the market; and in five years, the ability to reach anyone within the access
perimeter will be available."